First scene of the last chapter of No One Knows Me
So it was recently pointed out to me that it has been five months since I posted the last chapter of No one. Which is just . . . . unacceptable. I mean, Jesus. And since the writing is picking up (I've spent a good chunk of the last three days in front of an ever-growing Word doc. What what?) I figured it was time to at least give you guys something. Now the entire chapter is obviously going to be a bit lengthy (lots o' ground to cover) so it'll still probably take a bit (more on the few weeks side rather than months though) but hey, progress is progress right?
Also, anybody want to help me out with some art for the soundtrack? Nothing fancy, just a pretty picture is really all I'm looking for. :)
You wake up to pitch-blackness and it takes you a few seconds to remember exactly where you are. There’s a pain in your right arm just above your elbow and you bring your other hand up to rub at it. You look to your left to see the clock on the bedside table reads 3:47 and just as you start to wonder what exactly woke you up Rachel’s leg shoots out behind her and kicks your kneecap. You groan under your breath as your hand flies down to grab your knee.
“Well, that explains what happened to my arm,” you mumble to yourself as you turn your head to look at her. She’s curled up on her right side, arms tensed in front of her chest and her head sporadically twitching back and forth. Rachel’s told you before that she has kind of frequent nightmares but, having only spent four nights together in your entire two years, you’ve never been present for one and your first thought is that you have no idea what to do. You roll over onto your side to face her but you keep your distance. After a few moments her whole body jerks and she lets out a small broken whimper and it makes your heart skip. Before you can even decide to move you find yourself gently pressed up behind her with one arm propping you up enough to see her face and the other over her waist. Her forehead is furrowed and you think you can make out tear tracks in the sliver of moonlight coming in through the window. She whimpers again and you tighten your hold on her just a little and lean down to whisper in her ear.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Your voice is quiet even in the silence of the room as you try to bring her out of the nightmare without waking her up. “You’re okay baby, I’m right here. Nothing’s going to hurt you, I promise. Come back to me, Rach.” Her body starts to relax against yours and you allow yourself a little smile as you kiss the side of her head. “There you go. It’s okay, I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you.” Her brow smoothes out and she leans back into you and after a few more seconds you finally let yourself relax too. Satisfied that the nightmare is over you lay your head down on the pillow behind hers and close your eyes. Just as you feel yourself start to fall back asleep she tenses up against you again and shakes her head back and forth.
“Rachel -”
“No!” she yells and her elbow flies back into your chest hard enough to knock the breath out of you and send you flipping over onto your back. As you try to force air back into your lungs Rachel flips over to face you and you can see her eyes are open but she’s not quite awake yet. “Who?” There’s panic in her voice as she shrinks away from you to the edge of the bed.
“It’s me.” There’s still not enough air in your chest and it makes your voice sound a lot harsher than you were trying for. You take a deep breath and clear your throat before you speak again. “Rach, it’s me. It’s Quinn. It’s okay, you just had a nightmare.” You reach out for her but she quickly slaps your hand away.
“No, don’t. Please.” She still sounds panicked but not as badly as a few seconds ago.
“Okay, okay,” you tell her calmly as you slowly move your hand away from her. You lie perfectly still and just watch her as her breathing starts to slow down and her eyes become a little more focused. After a few more moments you see a tear roll down over her nose and a sob so quiet you almost miss it pushes past her lips. She just barely reaches a hand out toward you and it’s all the permission you need to reach over and pull her to you. She tangles a leg between yours and buries her head in your chest, her hand gripping tightly at your T-shirt as she starts crying in earnest. You hold her against you, slowly running a hand through her hair.
“You wanna tell me about the dream?” you ask gently a few minutes later once her shaking has stopped and her tears have lessened. She takes a deep breath and moves her arm to circle your waist and pull you even closer.
“No,” she says quietly.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” She picks her head up just enough to glance at you with a weak smile before laying it back down against your chest. “It doesn’t matter.” Except you’re pretty sure that it does. You saw the recognition in her eyes when you said your name. She knew exactly who you were when you reached out for her and she still wanted you to stay the hell away. You wonder if this is some rare occurrence or if you’re often the villain tormenting her in her sleep. You don’t think you really want to know the answer.
“Okay.”
“Talk to me,” she whispers and your skin tingles with the familiarity of it. Whenever Rachel finds herself stuck in her own head and fixating on things she doesn’t want to think about she asks you to talk. She claims that she can always focus on your voice and everything else just fades away. After nearly two months of constant uncertainty, of never being absolutely sure about even the smallest of things, the feeling of something you know, something you remember, brings a calmness over you that few things in your life ever have. Every song or building you recognize, every familiar gesture or expression Rachel makes settles you in a way you haven’t felt in months. You think the feeling will quickly start to fade but for now you’ll just smile and revel in it. Revel in her.
“Any suggested topics?” You lean down and kiss the top of her head and she nuzzles her cheek against your chest.
“What was it like? The amnesia?” The question doesn’t surprise you; you saw it in her eyes a million times over the last month even though she never asked it.
“Terrifying. Annoying. Chaotic. But mostly confusing.” You feel her laugh more than hear it.
“Well. That was very . . . . succinct.” You smile and laugh with her.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I was a completely different person. At least that’s what I thought when I was in it. The whole time I kept wondering why not being able to remember would somehow cause me to be someone so different from who everyone was telling me that I was before. That was also not a picnic, by the way. Listening to everyone tell me over and over how much of a massive bitch I was.” She laughs again and shuffles around until she finally settles in a more comfortable position with her laying less on top of you and more to your side and her face buried against your neck.
“Sorry, my arm was cramping. Carry on.” You just roll your eyes and grin.
“The thing was though, looking back on all of it now, I wasn’t really all that different. I just stopped giving a shit what other people thought. I started being me all the time instead of just with you.”
“Yeah, I had picked up on that.” You smile again and reach up to run a hand through her hair.
“Sorry about that, the whole springing Quinn on you in a Quinn Fabray environment.”
“That was definitely not good times.”
“Although, on that note, you didn’t exactly make my life all sunshine and roses there toward the beginning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You were being all secretive and ambiguous.”
“I was conflicted!”
“You were infuriating.” She props herself up on one elbow and squints her eyes at you. This is one of those times where her ‘pissed off face’ just makes you want to giggle but you do your best to hold it back.
“My super secret girlfriend, who I pretend to despise by the light of day, totaled her car and woke up with absolutely no memory of me. Needless to say my thought process was a little scattered.”
“Valid point,” you respond after a moment’s consideration. She waves a hand in the air and rolls her eyes before settling back down and you can’t contain your giggle any longer. “You’re my favorite of all my people. Certainly the most entertaining.”
“Well I should hope so.” You draw your arms around her pulling her a little closer as you look over at the clock.
“It’s almost four, we really should try and get some more sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow,” she whispers and you feel your heart twist a little.
“I know.” You don’t really want to talk about it either. You wish tomorrow wasn’t the end, that you didn’t have to go back. You wish your parents weren’t concerned with image above all else, you wish you didn’t live in such a small-minded town, you wish you’d had the courage to do right by her from the beginning. But most of all you just wish you didn’t have to leave.